Ways to Improve Computer Efficiency

Technology is supposed to make you
work faster, not slow you down. If you catch yourself staring at your
computer as it displays the hourglass tumbling about its axis, then
maybe it is time for you to try out a few tricks to speed things up.1. Get rid of old files associated with obsolete software that you may have long deleted, lurking around on your hard disk drive. That’s a sure shot way for your PC or Mac to run faster so claims “Popular Science”.

2.
Don’t get print outs for receipts of your online shopping for future
reference. Instead just save it in a folder clearly labeled. If you are a
Mac user, choose the “Print” command from the “SAFARI” toolbar. Next
from the PDF pop-up menu choose Save PDF to a Web Receipts Folder. That
way all your online shopping receipts are available to you at hand.

3.
Stop hunting through the not so useful search results that a Google
search throws at you. Instead use search engines like “Blekko”, which
bans dubious and spamming websites from its search results and offers
its users results that deliver. “DuckDuckGo” is an accumulator that
filters spam effectively.

4.
Have a strategy to come up with a password. Although we are encouraged
to have as many independent passwords as there are sites which ask for
them, every time we need to transact on them it is impossible to
remember them all. One way to choose a password which can be easy to
recall from memory (the grey one sitting atop your shoulders and not the
one in your computer) without being obvious is as follows. You could
think of your favorite nursery rhyme or a favorite song and pick the
first and last letter in the title of the poem or song and add your
favorite numeral to it and you’ve come up with a solid password which
you can tweak around for individual websites. For example, if I choose
to make a password from the phrase, “Tiger tiger burning bright” and my
favorite numeral is 5 then the password I’ll come up with is
“TRTRBGBT5”. If I want to use this for internet banking I’ll tweak it as
“TRTRBGBT5hsb” or if I want to shop at Amazon I’ll use the same
password with a slight modification as “TRTRBGBT5azn”.

5. Don’t
hit the panic button when the computer shows you an error message and
start rummaging all over the place looking for the user manual. Just
copy the message into your search engine to know what that error message
means and more importantly how to fix the error.

6. Use keyboard shortcuts. There are plenty of these which you should pick up and learn newer
ones. There is one that allows you to browse almost without your mouse.
Press ALT+D to access the address bar of your browser and type the
required web address.

7. Clear cookies and caches that get stored
on your computer each time you visit the Web. These bits of information
that get stored on your hard drive can substantially slow your browsing speed. For Chrome or Firefox, press CTRL+SHIFT+DEL and select “clear everything” to erase cookies and caches stored during the browsing session. For a Mac user you can go to the menu command under “SAFARI” on your left hand side and click on “Empty Cache”.

8.
Reduce the image sizes of the pictures you store on your computer.
Images captured with digital cameras take up lots of space and are
annoying to open at the receiver’s end should you send them as an
attachment in email.

9. Opt for customized and modular business
application software. These are developed precisely keeping in mind your
business needs. For instance, if you happen to be in the business of
running a chain of health facilities across various geographical
locations, you can save yourself a lot of pain by opting for a
customized gym management software application that can address the
various verticals of your business process.
Always be alert to try
out newer ways to cut short the time and effort you spend in performing
your routine tasks so you can use the time saved in other activities
that you push on the back burner.